Author Archives: ronqueens

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, December 10, 2025. It’s late here, owing to Elliot and me watching a horror film from 2019 called Brightburn on Netflix. We also had dinner out at Diner Bar, in Rego Park and didn’t get home until after 8.

For those of you who like gory films, this is one is for you. I knew nothing about it other than the brief description of it on the screen. This film offers a counterstory to the origins of Superman, in which an infertile farm couple living in – of all places – the fictitious town of Brightburn, Kansas, Kyle and Tori Breyer, are shaken to the core when they discover an alien ship crash-land near their farm. Inside is a small fragile baby that they soon take in as their own and rear him as their own son. They name the human-looking boy Brandon, and everything is honkie dory until the boy turns 12 and the chaos begins.

We soon learn that this boy, Brandon, has superpowers that make him superior to any human on the planet. But instead of using his superpowers for good, he uses them to wreak vengeance on his supposed enemies. Soon people in the town wind up dead as a result of his supernormal abilities like X-ray vision, super strength, and levitation. The film stars Elizabeth Banks as Tori and David Denman as her husband Kyle who begins to suspect his son later on of committing murder. In the role of the evil Brandon, Jackson A. Dunn does a pretty good steely stare that is quite frightening. He almost looks like he’s from another planet at times.

Produced by James Gunn, written by his cousin Mark and brother Brian and directed by David Yarovesky, the film delivers a nice take on the Superman origin story but takes it to another level altogether. This is the screenplay that asks, “What if Clark Kent wasn’t such a nice boy?” There are several moments of gruesome and horrifying violence, though, that might turn off some viewers. I hereby warn you here. But I do recommend the film with some reservations. It seemed more less developed than it could have been.

The burgeoning boat attack controversy is not going away for this liar in chief, as well as the Epstein scandal, as the president backtracked over releasing the video of the September 2 attack on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean Sea that killed two survivors, according to an ABC News article entitled “Trump backtracks on releasing boat strike video, distances himself from controversy,” by Hannah Demissie, Justin Gomez, and Allison Pecorin.

First the lying cheat said he had “no problem” with releasing that video, but is now reversing course and deferring to his Nazi Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth.

When pressed on Monday by ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott about his December 3 comments, he claimed, “I didn’t say that.” He then added, “Whatever Hegseth wants to do is OK with me.”

In an interview with Politico, published on Tuesday morning, Dump further distanced himself from the controversy when asked if he believed the second strike on the survivors was necessary.

A number of Senate repugnicans said on Tuesday that they’d like to see the full video of the September 2 strike released to the public.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis said, “We’ve got to release the video. Look, we have got to get the Epstein files released. We’ve got to get any videos that do not in any way compromise mission integrity out there. Just get the stuff out there.”

Some Democrats and legal experts have suggested that the killing of survivors could constitute a war crime.

Members of Congress are attempting to pass new legislation to force Hegseth to provide lawmakers the unedited footage of the strike.

Tillis on Tuesday said that releasing the video would clear up discrepancies about what it depicts.

The September 2 boat strike is part of what this cruel administration has called its “war” on drug cartels without offering a shred of evidence to substantiate their claims. There have been more than 20 military assaults against vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific, killing more than 80 people. I say this should enrage all Americans as this regime resorts to murder for no darn reason other than claiming these men were going to sell drugs to Americans.

Demonstrating more clearly that he’s out of touch with ordinary Americans, the billionaire president offered more of a stupid rant about nothing at a rally in Pennsylvania the other night. No one can believe what this idiot said in a rambling 90-minute discourse on what was supposed to allay the fears of Americans’ economic worries. Instead, he went off course as usual and made as much as sense as a inebriated dumb ass.

Thus in a Reuters online article, the babbling of this crazy man took center stage in “Trump veers off-script and does little to calm Republican nerves,” written by Anthony Zurcher.

Grump’s handlers expected him to address concerns around affordability and the state of the U.S. economy which he has tanked personally on his own since taking office.

Over the course of his cringeworthy address, he talked a little about the economy, but he also talked about immigration, his Democratic critics, Venezuelan boat strikes, windmills, and golfing.

“If some Republicans, and his White House aides were hoping for a focused message that the party could use to deflect repeated Democratic attacks over the economy, the president did little to deliver,” according to the article.

What it was was a typical “weave,” the term coined to indicate any of Dump’s longwinded, nonsensical speeches.

At first, he made a gaffe in calling his Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, Susie “Trump,” when he said she instructed him to focus on the economy. So here he couldn’t even remember the name of his own fucking chief of staff.

When he did talk about the economy, he resorted to blaming his predecessor for the bad economy we’re in right now, which is another fucking lie since the economy was actually better under Joe Biden. Even though people didn’t believe so then.

Against all of the experts, Grump defended his dumb tariffs, even though some economists have cited them as contributing to cost-of-living woes.

Harkening back to ridiculous comments he made earlier, Grump repeated the dumb comment about getting by with fewer pencils and dolls as Americans deal with buying fewer cheap products from China. What the fuck does this have anything to do with soaring costs at grocery stores, department stores, gas stations, and wherever? Again, the idiot said, “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter.” “Two or three are nice.” Who really buys 37 dolls for their daughter? one must ask.

I think I can’t continue with his comments here as I’m about to retch and it’s getting later. Just know that this dumb fuck let loose on refugees from “third world” countries, calling Somalia “about the worst country in the world,” as he brazenly gloried in his own festering xenophobia. He even double downed on Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Somali immigrant and naturalized citizen by saying “throw her the hell out,” and that “she does nothing but complain,” forgetting for the moment that this is what he does best – complain, complain, complain.

No wonder that this shit bag is the laughingstock of the world! How he has any damn supporters after this speech is totally beyond me!

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Tuesday, December 9, 2025. Today there was a revolt orchestrated in the House by several prominent female congresswomen against the frightful leadership of MAGA Mike Johnson. In an online USA Today article written by Natalie Neysa Alund, this rebellion receives center stage. The article is entitled “‘Hard truth:’ Nancy Mace says Pelosi was a better House speaker.” Oooh, that must hurt!

The Republican congresswoman who offered the bitter truth about Johnson’s horrible House Leadership was Republican Nancy Mace of South Carolina who said, Rep. Nancy Pelosi “was a more effective Speaker than any Republican this century.” She argued that her own traitorous party should learn from her leadership and she claimed that the party is marginalizing rank-and-file members, including women. That’s not hard to believe considering their awful handling of the Epstein files and the inescapable fact that their Supreme Leader is a raging misogynist.

Mace recently published an op-ed for The New York Times yesterday in which she wrote she came to Congress five years ago “believing I could make a difference for my constituents, for South Carolina, and for a country I love deeply.” She unfortunately learned “the system in the House promotes control by party leaders over accountability and achievement.”

Mace, 48, became the first Republican woman elected to Congress from the state in 2021 and has criticized the toddler in chief over the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Regrettably, she has since become one of his staunchest allies.

The South Carolina congresswoman asserted in her op-ed that there are so many obstacles placed in anyone’s way that “any member who came to Washington with noble intentions [must] ask: ‘Why am I even here?'”

Nancy Pelosi, who served as a former House speaker, announced her retirement in November, serving two stints as the highest-ranking member of Congress, first from 2007-2011 and again from 2019-2023. She was a staunch opponent of the Orange Turd when he was first in office. Who could forget the time she shredded the madman’s State of the Union address in front of cameras throughout the world when he finished his speech?

Pelosi’s time in office led to two impeachments of Drumpf, organized efforts to convince former President Joe Biden to drop his bid for a second term, and pushed through the Affordable Care Act, the biggest expansion of health care in a half-century.

Mace called her claims about Pelosi and House control “a hard truth Republicans don’t want to hear.” On August 4, Mace launched a campaign for the South Carolina gubernatorial race. So here it seems as if she’s looking for a graceful exit from Congress by pursuing the governorship of her state.

Mace was quite ruthless when it came to criticizing her party, saying, “When Democrats hold the majority, they ram through the most progressive policies they can. They deliver for the coalition that elected them while they are in power.”

Republicans, on the other hand, Mace deplored, do the very opposite.

“We get the majority, then become petrified of losing it. We pass the most moderate policies we can pressure conservatives to accept, betraying the coalition that delivered us here. Ms. Pelosi was ruthless, but she got things done. The current House is restrictive and ineffective, control with barely any results. Republican leadership seems intent on replicating her model of consolidation without her bold vision to push through the policies that won us the majority.”

Mace cited a meager statistic when it comes to introducing bills on the House floor this year. She said only 5 percent of the bills introduced this year have seen a floor vote.

She concluded, “What we have now is the worst of all worlds: little accountability, transparency, and results.”

The entire unworthy GOP should truly heed her words here; they cannot continue to go down the rabbit hole of ineptitude, but indeed, if they do, they will easily lose their supermajority next year in a tsunami of Democratic wins. It will just demonstrate to them that just winning elections to retain power without delivering to constituents isn’t enough to maintain control of Congress. Supermajorities are not permanent, as Rep. Nancy Pelosi stated in response to Mace’s criticism of her party.

This just in: coming on the heels of Nancy Mace’s openly critical takedown of her own party, today Democrats flipped the Miami mayor’s seat, electing the first Democrat in 30 years. This cannot be good news for the party of Johnson. The Democrat, Eileen Higgins, defeated the red hat repugnican who was endorsed by the liar in chief, and that loss really says something about the cachet of this lying, psychopathic president. Higgins gave Democrats a boost in one of the last electoral battles ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The only thing I’ll report about today is the brief conversation Elliot and I had with our Guatemalan house cleaner, “Lareto.” We scheduled her to work in the apartment around 10, so we had to wake up earlier than usual: 8:30. She arrived actually a little earlier than 10, around 9:45, and we welcomed her into our cozy abode. At some point, the conversation steered itself to her fears about going out because of what the Dump regime is doing with immigrants. She indicated she doesn’t like going out to Long Island where ICE agents have conducted recent raids.

Lareto’s fears are sadly well founded since the Orange Menace retook office and has embarked on a very un-American campaign of terror against undocumented immigrants. This is just one example of how the regime’s policies have affected someone close to me. Now I can’t say I don’t know anyone who has been touched by the cruelty of this regime’s agenda.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, December 8, 2025. We’re back from our sojourn to New England this weekend, visiting with friends “Laura” and “Richard.” I would say we had a very lovely and yummy time with Elliot’s Amherst friends. Laura prepared a very delicious dinner for us and one other couple on Saturday evening consisting of lamb shanks and mashed potatoes and a great dessert she baked herself like a blueberry galette. We also brought up our own banana bread that we baked on Friday. She made breakfast for us on both Sunday and Monday morning. On Sunday, she prepared pancakes with blueberries, and on Monday, she made a great spinach and bacon quiche.

The highlight was attending a dance class in swing dancing at a music venue in Easthampton, Massachusetts, called the Marigold Theater on Sunday. The lesson was provided at 3 and it ran an hour. After 4, a band came on stage called the Butterfly Swing Band and played for the next two hours. Therefore, Elliot and I swayed on the dance floor as long as we could before Elliot had enough. At times, I even picked up other partners after Elliot left the dance floor. I also danced with Laura several times when her husband, Richard, sat it out. After this workout, we drove back to Amherst for a delicious Italian meal at a local Italian restaurant called Pasta E Basta near their home. I had bruschetta and chicken parmigiana as my entree.

Returning to national news, I now refer to the White House arsonist being directly called out on CBS News’ 60 Minutes, where Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized this hugely unpopular president who now calls his former MAGA booster “traitor.” In an online Independent article entitled”MTG accuses Trump of ‘directly fueling’ death threats against her son by calling her traitor,” by Josh Marcus and Joe Sommerlad, the piece covers the long-ranging interview with Lesley Stahl. During the interview with Stahl, Greene accused the president of “directly fueling” death threats against her family.

Stahl asked the congresswoman who announced her intention to resign from Congress in early January about her decision “not to stay and fight” when Grump began to attack her on “Truth” Social last month, labeling her “Marjorie Traitor Brown.” Such an infantile response from an infantile man!

Greene stated, “After President Trump called me a traitor, I got a pipe bomb threat on my house. And then I got several direct death threats on my son.” The former MAGA cheerleader has two sons, aged 22 and 26, but she did not say which one was targeted. She did say that the president did put her life in danger with his inflammatory rhetoric. Stahl emphasized, “You say the president put your life in danger.” Greene responded, “The subject line for the direct death threats against my son was his words – Marjorie Traitor Greene.” She added, “Those are death threats directly fueled by President Trump.”

When Greene informed the toddler in chief and Vice President JD Vance about it, the latter promised to look into it, but the president said something along the lines of that “wasn’t very nice.” Which is a shitty remark, if you ask me! It’s obvious that this shit bag couldn’t care less now that Greene has received death threats since it was his own language that spurred the crazies out there to reach out to Greene in a very terrible way.

During the interview, Greene said she considered herself “America First” rather than MAGA, which she called “President Trump’s phrase,” and accused the Orange Turd of failing to deliver on his promises to voters by siding with corporate allies over regular Americans.

Suggesting that Dump has his priorities wrong, Greene said, “Those are the areas that are still getting everything they want, while the people, we’re still out here saying, ‘We want to see action on areas for the American people, not for the major industries and the big donors.'”

Throughout the year, the populist has hammered Dump and split with her party on a variety of issues, including surprisingly siding with Democrats to support extending Obamacare subsidies during shutdown negotiations and backing a bipartisan effort to force the government to release more of the Epstein files.

Greene even criticized her own members for actually mocking the Fat One behind his back but now pretending to be supporters out of a combination of political opportunism and fear of reprisals. She commented on how her colleagues went from making fun of him to now “kissing his ass” and deciding to put on a MAGA hat for the first time.

Greene made no promises as to her pursuing any kind of political ambitions in the near future. She told Stahl that she has “zero desire” to seek the White House in 2028, adding that she would “hate” being in the Senate and is not running for Georgia governor, as originally thought. She admitted, “I’m not your politician with a whole itinerary of plans or political ambitions.”

As for her split with Dump over the Epstein files, she recalled conversations she had with the toddler in chief over the Epstein scandal and where Dump claimed he wanted to prevent the release of those files because he said it would “hurt people.”

Providing the right answer to the president, Greene said, “These women were the ones who were hurt. They were raped at 14. They were raped at 16. I watched them stand in front of the press trembling, their bodies shaking as they were telling their stories, many of them for the first time.” She concluded, “These women deserve to be heard.”

It’s difficult to say what to think of this once robust Drumpf booster who has now received death threats because of her very dramatic severing of ties with him. I must say this once reviled Representative who spewed her own inflammatory rhetoric all throughout the first Dump presidency does have gumption in announcing such a public split with such an odious fellow. At the very least, we can admire the fact that she seems to have changed her views when she saw this president veering way off course from his own agenda and was not reluctant to air her opposing views when it became necessary to do so. The rest of America wishes more repugnicans like her could grow some balls to register their true contempt for this guy before it’s too late!

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, December 5, 2025. The Orange Turd has been hit by more bad news as a new poll of MAGA voters are souring on the delusional “leader.” In an online Daily Beast article by Adam Downer, terrible news is delivered by this new poll in the article entitled “Poll Shows Even MAGA Voters Now Want to Dump Trump.”

Thus even his most “diehard supporters are souring on the idea of four more years of him in the White House,” according to the article.

That poll, released by The Economist/YouGov outlets, found that among voters who backed the demagogue in 2024, 45 percent oppose the president running for a third term in 2028, even though he’s unable to do so constitutionally. Only 43 percent supported the idea – which is large in my eyes – and 11 percent were unsure.

Though a third term is illegal under the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms, the idea has gained some steam in part thanks to sycophantic Trumpican reps, official Dump merchandise trumpeting 2028, and former White House chief strategist and arsonist Steve Bannon saying there is a “plan in place” to give Grump a third term. He’s as delusional as the Orange Turd here, and is just engaging in more distracting techniques to cover up how awful this second term is for his darling racist.

Knowing instinctively how bad he is, both physically and mentally, Dump himself is souring on even suggesting a third term. Just on Tuesday, he acknowledged “it’s not gonna be me” in 2028 while suggesting that one of his incompetent Cabinet members could be the next Republican nominee. God help us! I think by then the country will be so soured on his entire Cabinet that if any of them ever attempt to run, they’d be outgunned by any Democrat who decides to run against them.

The poll results underscore Dump’s loosening grip on the repugnican party. Boston University politics professor Thomas Whalen said to Newsweek, “MAGA is not immune to the law of political gravity. It is a spent force at this point, bereft of ideas and urgency. I suspect Trump may want to run again, but he runs into a major roadblock known as the U.S. Constitution. There can be no third terms. Also, eight years of Donald Trump is enough drama for even the most devout MAGA supporter,” he concludes. He didn’t mention the roiling drama of just 11 months of his second term that is chock full of chaos already that is causing everyone a massive headache for those who follow the horrible news.

The president’s contentious second term – putting it mildly – is rife with scandal and extremely unpopular policies that have led to his sliding approval ratings which are literally in the toilet. Every pollster paints Dump with a negative approval rating.

High prices have also fueled MAGA’s break with their Supreme Leader. Americans are blaming him for the country’s cost-of-living crisis that he exacerbated with his damn tariffs, with 37 percent of Chump voters saying things have never been worse than they are right now. Democrats are definitely taking advantage of this perception, using an “affordability” message to make massive gains in special elections. And the jerk in the White House had the temerity to mock Democrats’ message on affordability, failing to recognize the harm he’s caused to millions of Americans!

This sets the stage for a 2026 midterm election cycle where Dump will undeniably be a liability for Trumpican candidates, barring a dramatic shift by November. Which hopefully won’t happen! Considering how awful he’s conducted himself in the Oval Office these last 11 months, the likelihood of Dump turning his record around to positive figures is highly unlikely. He would have had to have a massive stroke of empathy and decency and that ain’t going to happen!

I’m cutting my blog short tonight since Elliot and I are driving up to Massachusetts tomorrow to spend some time with Elliot’s dear friend, “Laura,” and her husband, “Richard.” This weekend was planned for some time now and it’s already here. We’re returning on Monday, December 8, sometime in the late afternoon or early evening, so I might not post my blog until the nest day if I’m too exhausted.

Have a great weekend then.

See you sometime next week.

And so it went!

This is the banana bread that Elliot and I baked today to bring up to Laura and Richard. The picture is a little blurry, it seems; sorry.

Here’s a better picture of our creation. Can’t wait to try it.

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, December 4, 2025. The U.S. “Extreme” Court today dealt a blow for democracy in its ridiculous ruling in reviving a redrawn Texas electoral map designed to add more repugnicans to the U.S. House of Representatives, thus making the president come in his diapers. The court made this decision, despite a lower court concluding earlier that that the map likely was racially discriminatory in violation of U.S. constitutional protections. This sad action by an overwhelmingly partisan court was covered in an online Reuters article by John Kruzel entitled “US Supreme Court revives pro-Republican Texas voting map.”

The justices granted a request by Texas officials to lift a lower court’s ruling that had blocked the state from using the Chump-backed map, which could slip as many as five currently Democratic-held U.S. seats to repugnicans. Which would be disastrous for next year!

It’s no mystery as to why repugnicans are currently running scared, as they hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress. Ceding control of either the House or Senate to Democrats in the November 2026 elections would endanger Grump’s legislative agenda – what agenda? one must ask – and open the door to Democratic-led congressional investigations targeting the president. Which is what a majority of Americans actually want, if you believe the polls.

Many Texas repugnican lawmakers freely admitted that the new map was devised in response to the Orange Turd’s demand to withdraw electoral maps for a partisan advantage in House races. But the El Paso-based court ruled 2-1 on November 18 that the map likely amounted to an unlawful racial gerrymander, siding with civil rights groups that sued to block it.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who authored the lower court’s ruling, wrote that “what ultimately spurred” Texas to redraw its map was a letter from the U.S. Justice Department urging state officials to “inject racial considerations into what Texas insists was a race-line process.” What this means then is the stupid Extreme Court went along with the redrawing of the Texas map on the basis of racial considerations and nothing else.

This judge who authored the first decision declaring the Texas measure as unconstitutional is actually a Grump appointee who wrote “The letter commands Texas to change four districts for one reason and one reason alone: the racial demographics of the voters who live there.”

The NAACP civil rights group noted in a statement after the ruling that “the state of Texas is only 40% white, but white voters control over 73% of the state’s congressional seats.”

However, there is a sliver lining here in that Indiana repugnicans, pressed to do the same thing in their state as in Texas, abandoned a legislative session on November 14 that had been called to enact a new congressional map in the state. So here is a state that has thwarted the Supreme Leader’s wish to give him an unfair advantage going into the midterms. Hats off to Indiana then!

In reaction to the unethical measure taken in Texas, Democratic-governed California reacted by passing a new map beneficial to Democrats this past November 4. Not surprisingly, this bastard and his regime has sued California to try to stop its new congressional map from taking effect. So who knows what might happen with California going into the midterms; hopefully, their new map will not be rejected by some judicial entity.

This bad ruling comes on the heels of this Court hearing another case involving race and redistricting. They are now hearing a case involving a map of U.S. House districts in Louisiana that could signal their willingness to undercut another key section of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 federal law enacted by Congress to prevent racial discrimination in voting. If he only knew, the late president Lyndon Baines Johnson would be turning in his grave if he knew how this current Court is rendering decisions benefiting the fascists in power, not the American people and democracy in general.

At least one good story involves the Grump’s personal Justice Department failing for a second time to secure an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James after a judge dismissed the previous mortgage fraud prosecution encouraged by the Orange Turd, according to people familiar with the matter. Do you think this gang that couldn’t shoot straight will even go for a third, failed attempt?

An even better story is that BOTH repugnicans and Democrats alike are blaming Donald Grump for the high cost of living that shows no signs of ending, even though this delusional asshole just recently condemned the issue of affordability as a “Democrat con job.” Which means he isn’t going to do anything about it!! We all know what happened to the hapless Marie Antoinette when she famously said, “Let them eat cake!” He will not survive this crisis and the burgeoning Hegseth scandal, in my opinion.

Today Elliot and I drove to New Hyde Park for a doctor’s appointment for Elliot at an electrophysiologist on Marcus Avenue at 11. The reason for this early consultation was to see if Elliot had to undergo a procedure called cardiac ablation, which is a mechanism in which a thin tube is inserted into a blood vessel and guided to the heart to burn or freeze abnormal electrical pathways causing an arrhythmia, restoring a normal heart rhythm. Thus I accompanied Elliot into the examining room in which a female technician took his pressure, weighed him, and performed an EKG. We then were ushered into the doctor’s office where he delivered very good news: Elliot didn’t really need the procedure. He said the procedure was unnecessary in his case where he’s not experiencing any discernible symptoms. We then shook the doctor’s hand and went on our merry way.

From there, we drove to Huntington to have a celebratory breakfast at Toast. After that, we walked to The Next Chapter, Huntington’s great bookstore. I even bought – egad! – a book, Raising Them Right, by Kyle Spencer, which is an examination of this country’s ultraconservative youth movement and its push to seize political power. I already started reading it and the author devotes a large part of the book to assassinated founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk. Naturally, I knew nothing about this charismatic but supremely flawed youth leader before his murder over this past September. The book will supply me with some meaningful tidbits of information regarding Kirk and his influence on so many young people who have terribly turned to the right. Now I’ll know why, according to the book.

Have a good Friday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, December 3, 2025. That special election in Tennessee sadly did not end with a victory for Democrats in the form of Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn, but the Republican who did win, Matt Van Epps, won by a very narrow margin, with Democrats now viewing this loss as more evidence that repugnicans are in deep doo-doo for the midterms. The race is covered in an online The Hill article written by the news outlet’s staff entitled “Live results: Republican wins Tennessee special election.”

This district was a deep-red one in which the Orange Turd won by more than 20 points last November. This time around, the repugnican won by roughly nine points, a slim margin for such a GOP-friendly district, which does not bode well for Chump’s party next November.

If you ask for my humble opinion, I still cannot understand why any damn repugnican can win any race during this time in a second Grump era.

In the meantime, MS Now anchor Lawrence O’Donnell has shredded the fascist in chief in his “Last Word” show last night which was covered in a HuffPost article by Marco Margaritoff entitled “Lawrence O’Donnell Shred Trump Over Latest ‘Distraction’ That Has Failed Miserably.”

The seasoned host of the late-night MS Now show excoriated the president over the ongoing U.S. military strikes off Venezuela and Defense Department Secretary Pete Hegseth for his reported orders to “kill everybody” on an alleged drug boat in September.

The “Last Word” host suggested during his monologue that these strikes were nothing more than a distraction – a distraction from releasing the Epstein files.

“There is no war in Venezuela,” O’Donnell said. “There will never be a war in Venezuela. Donald Trump foolishly decided to publicly play with the idea of war in Venezuela to distract from the Epstein files, a distraction that has failed miserably.”

The second strike on that defenseless boat has been met with controversy ever since the attack was conducted in September. Instead of sticking to the story that the unfit Hegseth delivered that order, White House press secretary bimbo Karoline Leavitt now said during a press conference that an Admiral Bradley issued the order for a second strike on his own without consulting Hegseth.

O’Donnell shredded the Orange Turd for lying about the incident, when he said,
“And Donald Trump’s first instinct, as we know, is always to lie about everything. And so, when asked about this, the very first words out of his mouth were, ‘I don’t know anything about it.’ That’s a classic Trump statement. He always says that.”

The liar in chief did claim ignorance on Sunday when asked about the incident, telling reporters he “wouldn’t have wanted” a second strike. The seasoned host then went on to quote Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who received a classified briefing on the mater in October.

According to the Washington Post, Moulton said, “Mark my words: it may take some time, but Americans will be prosecuted for this, either as a war crime or outright murder.” I can’t wait for that day when this consummate nitwit, Pete Hegseth, is brought up on charges of war crimes or, even, murder.

I won’t go into the absurdity of that Cabinet meeting in which the Alzheimer’s president was seen dozing while being advised by the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but the asshole known as Grump alienated more of his downtrodden supporters when he stupidly reversed his position on the issue of “affordability.” He now falsely claimed that “The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats.” He grossly continued, “The word affordability is a Democrat scam.”

It is this very issue that Democrats swept statewide elections last month in New Jersey and Virginia and used the issue to make a reliably red Tennessee Congressional district competitive in an election the same day as Grump’s remarks were uttered by the old fool.

The only saving grace at this ridiculous meeting was the acknowledgment by the old fool that he will not be the nominee in the 2028 presidential race. After absurdly floating a possible unconstitutional third term for much of his first year back in office., he finally acknowledged the truth: he can’t run again! This is the only true comment this nut job has made his entire life, I bet.

Well, at least the American people were delivered a scrap of good news during that Cabinet meeting that featured a snoozing president, which should alarm all of us.

Have a good Thursday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, December 1, 2025. An optimistic online article for AlterNet by Lesley Abravanel entitled “‘Signs everywhere’ that America’s MAGA ‘nightmare’ is almost over” appears today in which the author forecasts the inevitable demise of this American nightmare called “MAGA.” To me, the acronym really means that “Morons Are Governing America” from an early protest sign carried aloft in one of the “No Kings” rallies in Midtown. But, no, this slapdash political movement that has resulted in so much despair and ruin upon the American landscape will be celebrated when the movement is destroyed forever. So there is some room for hope delivered in this article that predicts the movement’s destruction when its stupid Supreme Leader is no longer on the scene.

Former pastor John Pavlovitz writes that “all brutal empires fall,” and the MAGA movement is no different, as signs of its inevitable demise are “everywhere.”

Pavlovitz writes, “Every time the pendulum has swung wildly toward barbarism in a society, it has invariably come back with even greater opposite force to bend the arc of the moral universe back toward justice again.”

The former pastor states that “our brutal national nightmare is likely in its final hours.”

He presciently writes, “Few cults survive the passing of their leaders, and MAGA will not outlive the departure of Donald Trump from the White House or from this earth, whichever comes first.”

Pavlovitz notes that Grump’s “physical attrition and mental degradation can no longer be hidden or distracted from. His body is rapidly breaking down, laboring with simple tasks, hemorrhaging energy, and riddled with the unmistakable tells of a man whose systems are failing.” No matter what bullshit the White House releases about his “exceptional health.”

Pavlovitz delivers a harsh assessment of Drumpf’s weakening hold on his party in this statement, “His already hate-addled mind is becoming more and more clouded in an ever-thickening haze of deterioration, drugs, and almost certain dementia. His outbursts have grown more impulsive, his decisions have become more desperate, and the once indestructible facade of strength is steadily crumbling. The strongman is withering.” Amen!

The former pastor calls Grump a lame-duck president already and states, “His once fierce death grip on political power is giving way to neutered impotence and growing irrelevance.” What has built him up is starting to collapse, he notes.

There are voices of dissent now emerging, Pavlovitz mentions. “The rapacious brutality of his regime is being exposed and condemned. The groundswell of public opposition is growing louder and more organized.”

“The defections from his party are accelerating, their unwavering allegiance weakening. His cockroach accomplices are scattering in the raking light of coming accountability,” Pavlovitz writes.

Pavlovitz surmises that Chump is on the verge of political expiration, writing, “He has peaked as a galvanizing presence, and there’s no GOP spin doctoring that can change that.”

Thus when Grump is gone, so will MAGA bite the dust, but, he says, they won’t “suddenly awaken from their cultic stupor and join the rest of us in benevolent and interdependent humanity.”

Even if MAGAts will not immediately rally to “wokeism,” Pavlovitz notes, they will “never again have someone who embodies the zeitgeist of grotesque impulses the way Trump has.” I say if for some reason, that pig JD Vance becomes president before Grump serves out his second term, he will never have the backs of the MAGA movement. He’s too despised by them.

These MAGA supporters may become “more violent, more desperate, and more committed to destruction,” Pavlovitz writes. But they know their time is short.

What will bring a smile to our faces is Pavlovitz’s assertion that “the end of MAGA is near.” He concludes, “And the dawn of the promise of America will break once again.”

I hope all of what Pavlovitz writes here does come to fruition. To me, MAGA is a stain on America created by the worst president ever to occupy the Oval Office, Donald J. Grump. It has been our national nightmare for so long – at least nine years. I would love to see a new dawn coming, wouldn’t you?

Tomorrow is my gay men’s reading club meeting at 6:30, so I probably won’t be here tomorrow night if I decide to have a nonalcoholic drink at Julius’s after the meeting.

See you on Wednesday then.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Sunday, November 30, 2025. Finally, lawmakers are finding their spine in the wake of this regime’s firing on alleged drug traffickers at sea in which 80 people have been killed in military strikes against the vessels carrying them. In an Associated Press online article by Kevin Freking entitled “Lawmakers voice support for congressional reviews of Trump’s military strikes on boats,” the situation is reported on where lawmakers have initially voiced concern about these unlawful strikes.

Thus lawmakers from both parties said today that they support congressional review of U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, citing a published report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order for all crew members to be killed as part of a September 2 attack.

The lawmakers said they did not know whether last week’s Washington Post report was true. Though there are still some repugnicans who are skeptical of this report, but they did say that attacking survivors of an initial missile strike poses serious legal concerns.

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) said, “This rises to the level of a war crime if it’s true.”

One skeptical repugnican, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), when asked about a follow-up strike aimed at people no longer able to fight, said that Congress does not have information that happened. However, if Hegseth is found to have issued orders to kill defenseless individuals, Turner said, “Obviously, if that occurred, that would be very serious and I agree that that would be an illegal act.” At lest this putz did agree that this action could constitute an illegal act.

In the meantime, this murderous regime says the strikes in the Caribbean were warranted since they were aimed at cartels, some of which it claims are controlled by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Now this so-called “peace” president is weighing whether to carry out strikes on the Venezuelan mainland, thus possibly dragging us into another armed conflict that is totally unnecessary.

Rep. Turner said there are concerns in Congress about the attacks on vessels that the Grump administration says are transporting drugs, but the allegation regarding the September 2 assault “is completely outside anything that has been discussed with Congress and there is an ongoing investigation.”

Now that Grump has made comments saying that the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety,” an assertion that raised more questions about the U.S. pressure on Maduro, Venezuelan’s government is accusing this country of making a “colonial threat” and seeking to undermine the South American country’s sovereignty.

As would be expected, the unfit Hegseth defends his organization’s actions during this conflict. He averred, “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict – and approved by the best military and civilian lawmakers, up and down the chain of command.” Let’s hope this beast would comply then with a subpoena to testify before the Armed Services Committee if it ever came to that.

So far, repugnican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and its top Democrat, Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, said in a joint statement late Friday that the committee “will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances.”

Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama and the ranking Democratic member, Washington Rep. Adam Smith, issued a joint statement saying the panel was committed to “providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s military operations in the Caribbean.”

Another repugnican, Don Bacon (R-NE), asked about the September 2 attack, said Hegseth deserves a chance to present his side. So subpoena the bum, Rep. Bacon, and get him to offer his objective perspective on what happened on September 2. Bacon did say, “We should get to the truth. I don’t think he would be foolish enough to make this decision to say, kill everybody, kill the survivors because that’s a clear violation of the law of war.” No one said this jerk even knows what the law is in that regard. He should never have been confirmed by Congress. Everyone knows that by now!

Let’s hope then that this article signifies now that there is some tentative opposition to what this horrible administration is doing at the present moment.

Now it’s getting late since Elliot and I watched a great true-crime documentary called Girl in the Picture from 2022. It’s an hour, forty-eight-minute depiction of sexual assault, violence, and murder of innocence in the guise of one convicted felon known by several aliases who kidnapped a young woman and brutalized her over a period of decades forcing her into working as an exotic dancer, eventually kidnapping her son, and was later convicted of murdering another woman years earlier. The tale was very long but fascinating. Only toward the very end does the viewer know who this woman really was. Her identity had not been known for about 35 years. She was known for many years as Sharon Marshall, but that was not her real name. I wholeheartedly recommend viewing this even though it’s quite difficult to watch at times.

I also spent some time with my son earlier when Elliot and I picked him up at his mother’s house in Hollis Hills and took him out to dinner at a Greek restaurant on Northern Boulevard called Mythos. We had a very delicious dinner consisting of Greek salad and avgolemono soup for me, and my sharing souvlaki skaras with Elliot, while “Joshua” ordered the same entree. We asked Joshua to drive our car which is a year old today back to his mother’s house since Elliot forgot to bring his driver’s license in his wallet. Of course, I drove home.

It’s another week and the first week of December. Wow! Have a good week then.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, November 29, 2025. In the wake of the National Guard shooting, the divider in chief’s hate-filled rant on the eve of Thanksgiving is getting a lot of negative backlash from all quarters. His inflammatory rhetoric is detailed in an online The Guardian article by Maya Yang entitled “Trump’s hate-filled rant ignores facts on immigrant crime and economic benefits.”

His rant slammed immigrants for crime, “social dysfunction,” and economic hardship that is easily refuted by a wide range of immigration statistics which clearly show that immigrants dramatically bolster the U.S. economy and commit crimes at far lower rates than people born in this country.

Who could forget this “president’s” lying rant in which he condemned immigrants in a broad and vicious invective, painting them as “illegal and disruptive populations” and attacking “those that hate, steal, murder and destroy everything that America stands for”? Wouldn’t you say this jerk is a little hyperbolic here and is lying through his fat ass? I didn’t even go into this on Friday since I didn’t want it exposed here even because it’s patently untrue. But this is what a president has put out, and is it even worth mentioning if it’s the rantings of a madman as Chump really is? But it’s one thing to ignore this jackass, it’s another to witness the campaign of terror that this sad shooting incident has spurred which is to possibly block all migration from “third world countries” as a result. This is what Grump has vowed to do as a consequence of one Afghan going “nuts,” in his third-grade parlance! Take vengeance on all Afghan immigrants! It’s totally absurd.

The Afghan national who carried out this heinous act actually assisted the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, as records show, and was evacuated to this country after the American military withdrew.

The incident has sparked even more anti-immigration rhetoric from this cruel regime, which has indicated it will further intensify its crackdown on immigrant communities – already a focal point of fierce opposition from civil rights groups, Democratic lawmakers, and even the public.

Chump, ever the fascist, has promised to conduct a comprehensive review of asylum cases and green cards issued to people from certain countries.

Despite Grump’s total false claims in his post, in which he claimed incorrectly that 53 million people in the United States – “most of which are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs or drug cartels” – are contributing to “high crime,” economists have found that immigrants are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated compared to individuals born here. This trend has been consistent for the past 150 years, and yet, this fucking president continues to cling to unsubstantiated garbage.

Actually, it’s immigrants, Mr. President, that have contributed to the falling of crime rates in this country. Not increased them! “According to an analysis by the American Immigration Council (AIC), the immigrant share of the U.S. population has more than doubled since 1980, rising from 6.2 percent to 13.9 percent in 2022. During the same period, the overall crime rate dropped by 60.4 percent, from 59,000 crimes per 100,000 people to 2,335. This includes a 34.5 percent decrease in violent crime and a 63.3 percent reduction in property crime.”

Chump’s absurd statistics about immigrants being an economic albatross in this country are flatly contradicted by data showing immigrants are significant contributors to the country’s economy. “In 2023, undocumented immigrant households contributed $89.8bn in federal, state and local taxes, while holding $299bn in spending power, according to the AIC.”

Asserting with particular malice, Grump stated that “this refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America.” There is dysfunction in America right now, but it’s not coming from immigrant communities, it’s wholly coming from the Trump regime and its fucking horrible policies, no doubt about it!

Little Donnie also cruelly described Minnesota as being taken over by “hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia.” Not fucking true! He falsely asserted that “Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for ‘prey.'” He then ridiculed Ilhan Omar, a Somali American and member of Congress from Minnesota, as someone “always wrapped in her swaddling hijab.” This couldn’t be more openly racist than if you just yelled fire in a crowded movie house. Grump then bizarrely suggested that Omar had married her brother. If I were her, I would sue the administration for defamation of character.

Minnesota does boast a large Somalian population, but Somalians have emigrated to the city fleeing famine and civil war, but this president couldn’t care less why they’ve settled in this midwestern city.

What’s even worse with this 1984 regime is the terrible reality of his wholesale immigration raids that are allegedly targeting only criminals across the country. They are not! A new study from the Cato Institute found that 73 percent of people detained by ICE have NO convictions. It also found that nearly half had no criminal conviction nor even any pending criminal charges and that only 5 percent had a violent criminal conviction. This is not what the majority of Americans wanted and this will result in terrible consequences for the people within Chump’s inner circle of misfits and incompetents.

Now I must get back to watching a British thriller from 2024 called Restless. It’s a story everyone can identify with: the plot details the terror a single middle-aged woman goes through by having a terrible neighbor who booms music into her attached house during all times of the night and how she responds to the young man’s continuous barrage of loud music over a period of seven days. The film stars no one I especially know, but it seems quite good. It is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Have a good Sunday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, November 28, 2025, one day after Thanksgiving. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I was going to take a break for the holiday. Elliot and I had a marvelous time with our friend “Patricia” having a bounteous Thanksgiving lunch at her West Side Tennis Club, in Forest Hills. I know we are quite privileged in being able to do this when so many families are experiencing food insecurity right now in the richest country in the world. So I’m aware of the situation and I know that costs associated with the holiday have risen because of the idiot in chief’s terrible tariffs. This situation, as everyone must be conscious of by now, is that this inflationary spiral swirling around prices that people have to pay in order to sit down at the dinner table with family members they’d rather not be associated with for more than several days of the year is the work of one man: Donald J. Grump. It’s the economy, stupid!

Some information on that “incendiary” video that prompted the despicable Secretary of Defense (I won’t use the new designation here: “War”) Pete Hegseth to call for Senator Mark Kelly’s court martial. It’s because Hegseth was actually following illegal orders to murder people as Secretary of Defense. This is the program in which the Dump administration gave the orders to murder 80 people so far in those boats in which allegations were made that these individuals were drug traffickers and that there was no direct evidence linking these people to the charges. That’s why Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers made that video. They were focusing on Hegseth’s direct orders to fire on those “drug” vessels.

This situation is given full coverage in a MeidasTouch column by Ron Filipkowski from November 28. Filipkowski cites a Washington Post article in which the Defense Secretary was overheard giving a spoken directive, “The order was to kill everybody” on board those vessels. One of those missile strikes killed 11 people, but as the smoke cleared, it was apparent that there were two survivors. They were clinging to the smoldering wreck. However, a Special Ops commander overseeing the September 2 attack ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions. Afterward, the two men were blown apart in the water.

In the wake of these illegal attacks, some current and former U.S. officials have said that the Pentagon’s lethal campaign is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution – people like Hegseth and Chump, indubitably. It’s clear that these alleged traffickers pose no imminent threat of attack against the United States and are not, as the Chump administration has tried to argue, in an “armed conflict” with the country. A former military lawyer who advised Special Ops forces at the height of the U.S. counterterrorism campaign, Todd Huntley, said that because there isn’t anything like a legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats “amounts to murder.”

Huntley also said that even if the United States were at war with the traffickers, which it isn’t, an order to kill all the boat’s occupants if they were no longer able to fight “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime.” Huntley is now director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law. The elite counterterrorism group SEAL Team 6 led the attack.

Army combat vet and congressional candidate Fred Wellman said, “This is insanely illegal. When you ask what the Democrats were talking in their video about the kind of orders that are illegal . . . this is it. It’s against the law to kill wounded prisoners. Period. This is monstrous.”

Who even heard the jerk’s Thanksgiving Day message? I know I had no desire to hear it, but I’m now reading about what this unhinged maniac spoke about on his social platform. All I know is that in a long, rambling piece of garbage, the idiot in chief called Minnesota Governor Tim Walz “retarded.” What a fucking thing to say? This is totally ridiculous and wholly inappropriate coming from a president’s supposed Thanksgiving message.

Then the idiot in chief held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago after golfing. The subject was supposed to be about thanking U.S. service members on Thanksgiving. Instead, it turned into this where the monumental narcissist talked about winning 38 championships without having to practice very much. Then he rambled on about winning them legitimately (even though people have said he does cheat). Is this the damn message people wanted to hear from their commander in chief to honor a federal holiday? I would dare say, “Hell no!” Who fucking cares about his golf game? Let him play golf in Heaven (?) already!

I’m reading now Grump’s whole Thanksgiving message that was printed in Filipkowski’s column and it’s fucking as unhinged as they come. The message behind it was so negative that it could be called “Trumpian” in scope: nothing good, nothing honorable, nothing positive. This guy is a fucking sob queen, it’s so pathetic!

Just another day under this madman. Hopefully our day will come next year.

Have a great weekend.

And so it went!